Call to cut Qld property taxes

Queensland’s property sector has called on the Newman government to scrap taxes, including stamp duty for off-the-plan residential sales and the land tax surcharge, to encourage more investment in the state.

As the embattled property and construction industry looks to the Liberal-National Party government’s first budget next week to kick-start the economy, it has asked Treasurer Tim Nicholls to undertake a wide-ranging review of state taxation.

Premier
Campbell Newman
is expected to spruik his government’s overhaul of planning laws and red tape when he addresses the property industry at a lunch in Brisbane today.

The Property Council of Australia’s Queensland executive director, Kathy Mac Dermott, said although the planning changes were welcome, the sector still bore an unfair proportion of the state’s tax burden, contributing 29 per cent, or $3.8 billion, of state taxation revenue.

She said scrapping stamp duty for off-the-plan residential sales and lifting the former state government’s 0.5 per cent land tax surcharge would help encourage more investment, especially from interstate.